For all the reasons cited in yesterday's review (read it here) and if last night's repeat of the season 3 finale didn't make you double down on "Lost" love, then just stop reading right now.

I wasn't sure if I'd be down with watching the whole 2-hour repeat last night, even with its jaunty pop-up info-bits, but I was transfixed all over again. And digging on the details, such as:

The shocked/impressed/horrified look ("What kind of person ARE you?") Sawyer shoots at bound-and-gagged Sayid the moment after he uses his legs to trip, disarm and snap the neck of the last Other on the beach.

The jaunty way Charlie, bound and battered, called one-eyed Mikhail "Cyclops" while turning him against his Bambi-and-Thumper tormentors.

And remember how the first VW bus episode last winter seemed like such a departure from the central plot line? Only of course it turned out to be central in multiple ways, both as the vehicle operated by Ben's dad (and the sight of his murder, at Ben's patricidal hands) but now also the vehicle for this climactic Hurley ex machina.

Though let me come right out here and say that even a meander-y off-topic "Lost" episode is almost certainly going to be one of the best hours of network tv on any given week. People grumble, wanting life to be all climax all of the time, but in a 22 hour (or even a 16 hour) season, and given such fascinating, well-developed characters, a diversion or two seems like a fine idea. Does every moment of a series have to be another step in a perpetual march-to-climax? Is it wrong to explore a bit and see what emerges in the far corners of the imaginary world? No and no.

Anyway, so much more to discuss. But here comes yesterday's review and then tonight's premiere (following the hour-long recap episode) so brace yourself. It's going to be a fine, fine night.

The advance DVDs of the first two episodes in "Lost's" new season came from ABC with a list of details I'm not supposed to mention here.

Plot twists. Back stories. Certain matters of life and death. All of them intriguing and/or surprising and/or cool, and all best left to the show's own unfolding, magically real world.

So, no spoilers here.

But I will say that it all makes sense, in a "Lost"-ian kind of way.

Of course, polar bear remains turn up in the Tunisian desert. And, of course, that bear has a Dharma tag on the remnants of its collar. And the remains of Oceanic Flight 815 have been discovered -- on the floor of the ocean, with the bodies of its passengers all aboard -- even though we know the actual plane crashed onto a certain sinister-yet-magical island.

Don't even ask about the identities of the rescuers, whose motivations are, at best, complicated.

We saw that coming. Just as we have come to understand that creating a series as consistently (and enjoyably) surprising as "Lost" isn't the primary objective of commercial television networks such as ABC.

As the ongoing writers' strike -- and the recent glut of reality fare that might as well be "The Moment of Humiliation" and "Who Wants to Slap a Duck?" -- reminds us, it takes time, money and talent to create an imaginary world. Peopling it with vivid, wholly realized characters is even more complex, and spinning them all into a multi-layered, adventure-slash-paranormal fantasy-slash-philosophical treatise, well, that's close to priceless.

So is the giddy feeling that comes as the first moments of the fourth season flicker on the screen.

The end of the third season had left the island-borne gang in typical fashion, splayed somewhere between hope, fear and full-on dread. The Others, sinister island inhabitants led by the charismatic, shifty Ben Linus (Michael Emerson), finally had been vanquished. Better yet, Jack (Matthew Fox) had finally managed to summon rescuers with the satellite phone offered by mysterious parachutist Naomi, who may or may not be in league with Penny, the long-lost girlfriend of the increasingly psychic Desmond (Henry Ian Cusick).

So, rescue may finally be at hand.

Or maybe not. Because the last living gesture of Charlie (Dominic Monaghan) was to tell Desmond that the rescuers weren't who they said they were.

So, is that why Ben keeps insisting that the newcomers are intent on killing everyone in sight?

Is that why John Locke (Terry O'Quinn) hurled a knife into Naomi's back just as she was about to contact her compatriots?

And what does any of this tell us about the flash-forwards that reveal certain survivors leading strangely miserable existences in some post-rescue future back home?

"It wants us to come back!" one of them hollers at the end of this season's premiere. "It's doing anything it can!"

The new episodes carom back and forth from the island to the future to certain key moments in the past that begin to sketch in the lives of, and connections between, the new characters. As ever, the tension between faith and reason governs much of the action. Real-world commentary (on war, torture and hatred) merges with fantasy. Action becomes metaphor, and philosophical constructs become gut-wrenching. The narrative line between reality and fantasy grows murky, then vanishes.

Yes, he is, and it makes perfect sense. Miracles happen, and "Lost's" existence on mainstream American TV is one of them.

Eli Stone: ABC has similarly high hopes for "Eli Stone," the new lawyer dramedy premiering Thursday night just after "Lost." But "Eli" falls short, not just of the sky-high achievements of "Lost," but also of the vaguely similar "Pushing Daisies" (also on ABC) and Fox's short-lived "Wonderfalls" from a few years back.

Not for lack of ambition, however. No show built around a lawyer-turned-modern-day prophet, whose visions include real-life pop singer George Michael, can be accused of lacking chutzpah. Too bad it's all being used to service such lame Hollywood sentiments.

Central character Eli Stone (Jonny Lee Miller) is a hyper-ambitious associate at a powerful, if ethics-free, law firm in San Francisco (the traditional homeland for TV characters we're to understand as being offbeat). He's got a hot, hyper-ambitious lawyer fiancee (Natasha Henstridge) and a life built around what he calls the "holy trinity: Armani, accessories and ambition."

But then Eli becomes overwhelmed by the sound of George Michael hits (mimed at times by the real Mr. Michael). Other visions appear, and another soulless Yuppie is made to see the light.

With laughs, though. Hence the campy George Michael aspect. Plus also the Chinese acupuncturist whose thick accent gives way to reveal the sophisticated musings of a philosophy graduate student. And also the fact that Eli's revelations tend to inspire a lot of pratfalls.

But no amount of slapstick can leaven the dim Hollywood morality at work here.

You may have heard this before, but here it is again: Corporate attorneys are amoral. Which at least puts them one up on corporate executives, who are stone cold immoral. The little guy is always right, and if you don't believe me, just ask the funky Chinese acupuncturist-philosophy student.

"You believe in right and wrong, in justice and love," he tells "Eli's" producers -- I mean, Eli.

And those producers, as employees of ABC and thus the Walt Disney multibillion-dollar media monolith, also turn out to be corporate executives, of a sort. And what did "Eli Stone" just tell us about them?